Travel Tips

October 17, 2004

EXPLORE A CORN MAZE

For fall, farms in Virginia offer weekend family fun, especially if you want to pick your own pumpkin, run through a corn maze and enjoy an old-fashioned hayride.

The Walters Family Fun in Wytheville (southwest part of Virginia) features an 8-acre corn maze. You are given a card with 12 questions about U.S. agriculture and its impact on the area. At strategic locations along the maze's nearly 5,000 linear feet of paths are checkpoints that contain answers to the questions. You objective is to locate the checkouts in the 320,000 square feet of corn and record the answers on your card.

The maze is open 1 to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 31. Admission is $6 adults, $4 children. It's located off Exit 70 along I-81. E-mail info@cornmazecrazy.com or visit www.cornmazecrazy.com. You can call (276) 228-2727.

* Locally, if you're looking for a nearby place to pick your own pumpkin and take hayrides, contact the Belmont Berry and Pumpkin Farm on the Middle Peninsula at (804) 725-7151.

For other family fun sites on farms in Virginia, visit www.virginiagrown.com. Get tips on picking, using and carving a pumpkin at the new Virginia Pumpkin Growers Association Web site at www.pumpkinva.org.

COLORS GET SMOKY

Experts on leaf color predict that the trees around Gatlinburg in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will put on their peak color show this coming week, the third week of October.

"We've got a recipe right now for really good fall color," park spokesman Bob Miller says. "We're beginning to see color already at the higher elevations."

The nation's most visited national park hugs the mountains between Gatlinburg and Cherokee, N.C. Visit www.nps.gov/grsm/gsmsite/home.

The amusement park, located in the Great Smoky Mountains, will add 10 rides in 2005 in a 3 1/2-acre expansion of the park's Country Fair area that will increase ride capacity by more than 2,000 passengers an hour.

The new rides will mix traditional midway favorites with unique attractions, such as an airplane-style ride that allows passengers to create their own experience. Most will allow parents and children to experience the ride together.

Construction begins in November with completion prior to the park's seasonal opening March 26. For details, go to www.dollywood.com or call (865) 428-9488.

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